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For The Love Of The Game

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Though he last wore a Harvard University baseball uniform in the spring of 1999, Hal Carey still holds school records for career hits and stolen bases. The Needham native is still playing the game he loves, and playing it well, in the nation’s oldest continuous amateur baseball league. Carey, head baseball coach at his high school alma mater, Catholic Memorial in West Roxbury, recently completed his 11th season in the Boston Park League as shortstop for the Stockyard Club, the runner-up in the league championship series last week to the Boston Padres. A league all-star who batted .308 as one of the team’s elders at age 30, Carey played for the Park League’s All Dorchester Sports League team for three seasons while attending Harvard and the past eight years for the Walsh and Stockyard clubs.

More to Driscoll’s Life Than Umpiring

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It was a playoff game between Reading and Tewksbury and the schedule-maker assigned two guys named Driscoll as the umpires. The base umpire, Joe Driscoll, seemingly had been around baseball forever, a veteran arbiter whom everybody trusted. The plate umpire was Joe’s son, Todd. He was young, inexperienced. There were fears he’d make a bad call and blow the game.

A Faded Glory, But A Glory Of Summer Nonetheless

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Tall, lanky left-hander Zak Smotherman throws a sharply curving breaking ball that would fool even the most skilled of hitters. The pitch stuns the right-handed batter, as the umpire bellows out the verdict for the handful of fans. The batter, clearly upset, wipes the sweat off of his face with the sleeve of his Mass. Envelope jersey. He eyes Smotherman, of the Irish Village team, waiting patiently on the mound. This is not a professional baseball game, but a hard-nosed match at Roslindale’s Fallon Field in what may be one of the best-kept secrets in the City of Boston. The Boston Park League, which has for years combined some of Boston’s most talented baseball prospects with former stars whose glory had faded, is in its 76th year. Although it seems, at times, forgotten, the league endures, despite setbacks in attendance, facility maintenance, funding, and a reduced pool of top-notch players.

Local Boy Does Good

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It was a scene from an earlier, simpler time, before the onslaught of cell phones, pagers and wide-screen, high-definition television. The Padres, a longtime entry in the Boston Park League, and in a scramble for the BPL’s two remaining playoff spots, had just emerged with a 6-3 victory over Cannon Club at Hyde Park’s Ross Field, but now the players, instead of celebrating their victory, were milling together in the parking lot, glued to their car radios, hanging on every word that barked from various speakers. Incredible. People, standing together, focused, alert, listening to the radio. This is how folks heard of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the death of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the Kennedy assassinations. But in 2005, when and why do people hunker over … a radio? For these guys, the answer was simple: Manny Delcarmen, a product of Hyde Park, whose family’s house is just a few blocks from Ross Field, was making his major league debut with the Boston Red Sox.

True Blue

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The rules of etiquette in amateur baseball are quite clear in the matter of players losing their cool. You throw your helmet, you’re gone. You throw your bat, you’re gone. No discussion, no debates, no appeals. But even very good umpires do not have eyes in the back of their heads. So let’s say a game is being played at, oh, Somerville’s Trum Field, and let’s say some Yawkey League hothead tries to turn his helmet into the Delta Shuttle after popping out to short, and let’s say that, at that precise moment, the plate umpire happens to be admiring the design of the Somerville Public Works Building, which is located out beyond the left field fence. Under these circumstances, this is what happens: Nothing. The hothead gobbles up his helmet and returns to the bench, the next hitter steps up to the dish, the game continues. Life goes on. And so it is that we introduce Walter Bentson, a longtime umpire on the New England amateur baseball scene who has carved out a richly-deserved reputation as a hardball arbiter with that rare blend of keen eye, solid judgment and refreshing temperament.

Zach Soolman, Tommy John Surgery, and The Love of the Game

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If Zach Soolman’s true baseball ambitions had been realized, he’d have been pitching for the Red Sox last summer, perhaps working in step with Pedro Martinez in the rotation and giving New England baseball fans a dazzling 1-2 pitching punch: Zach and Pete, and pray for sleet, or some such pressbox contrivance. But fantasy is fantasy, and real life is real life. And for Zach Soolman, in hisa 28th summer, real life meant working in the consumer marketing department for Gorton’s Seafoods, and, just for kicks, pitching for the Larkin Club in the Boston Park League. Soolman has been pitching pretty much his whole life, from Little League bandboxes to Needham High School to Tufts University. His college career ended with his graduation from Tufts in 1995, but he never stopped pitching. Going into last season, he had been a Park League mainstay for nine years. We bring you, then, to the night of July 30, 2001.

Park League Inducts Casey Into Its Hall

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John Casey, who grew up in Jamaica Plain and has been head baseball coach at Tufts University in Somerville since 1984, was inducted this month into the Boston Park League Hall of Fame. The league is the oldest amateur baseball league in the country. Casey was considered one of its top players in the 1980s and one of its best umpires in the 1990s. He has continued his support of the league since retiring from the diamond.

Playing for the Love of the Game

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My shoulder is held together with fishing line, says veteran righthander Dave Worthley of the Boston Park League’s Towne Club. And he’s not joking. Doctors gave me a 50-50 chance of being able to throw again, but I made it perfectly clear that for me it was 99 percent.

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